DEIXIS

What is Deixis?

The word of deixis comes from the Greek word for ‘pointing’ or ‘indicating’. Deixis means different things to different people.
Deixis concerns the ways in which languages express features of the context of utterance or speech event in a different way. It
concerns ways in which the interpretation of utterance depends on the analysis of that context of utterance

Philosophical Approaches

Deixis = also called indexical expressions. It functions of indexical expressions = to tell us where to look for a reference. This
reference is mostly related to a particular person, place or time

ex.: Letizia de Ramolino was the mother of Napoleon.

=> The individual known as ‘Letizia de Ramolino’ was in fact identical to the individual who was the mother of Napoleon.

=> The truth does not depend on who says it, but simply on the facts in history but when we have the sentence:

I am the mother of Napoleon.

 We have to take into account who the speaker is Just if the person who utters this sentence is in fact the mother of Napoleon,
this statement is true.

=> so the expression “I” is not clearly definable

Deixis is a universal linguistic phenomenon. This is because language communication always happens with people participating, in a
certain place at a certain time. We can not communicate without making any reference to people, place and time. According to
Professor HE Zhao-xiong, deixis can be divided into five types: person deixis, time deixis, place deixis, text deixis and social deixis
(HE Zhao-xiong, 1989, pp. 36-66). The following are examples:
(1) “We” think and feel, and use language to induce parallel thoughts and feelings in others. (Person deixis)
(2) It is very cold out “there”. (Place deixis)
(3) We will leave for Beijing “tomorrow”. (Time deixis)
(4) “In other words”, we interpret particular instances of language by referring them to general scheme. (Text
deixis)

Person Deixis

Person deixis concerns itself with the involved in an utterance, (1) those directly involved (e.g. the speaker, the addressee), (2) those
not directly involved (e.g. overhearers—those who hear the utterance but who are not being directly addressed), and (3) those
mentioned in the utterance. In English, the distinctions are generally indicated by pronouns. The following examples show how. (The
person deictic terms are in italics [a signaling notation that will continue through this article].)
  I am going to the movies.
 Would you like to have dinner?
 They tried to hurt me, but he came to the rescue.

Place/spatial

Place deixis, also known as space deixis, concerns itself with the spatial locations relevant to an utterance. Similarly to person deixis,
the locations may be either those of the speaker and addressee or those of persons or objects being referred to. The most salient
English examples are the “here” and “there” and the “this” and “that” - although those are far from being the only deictic words.

Some examples:

 I enjoy living in this city.

 Here is where we will place the statue.
 She was sitting over there.

Unless otherwise specified, place deictic terms are generally understood to be relative to the location of the speaker, as in

 The shop is across the street.

Where “across the street” is understood to mean “across the street from where I am right now.” It is interesting to note that while
“here” and “there” are often used to refer to locations near to and far from the speaker, respectively, “there” can also refer to the
location of the addressee, if they are not in the same location as the speaker. So, while

 Here is a good spot; it is too sunny over there.

Exemplifies the former usage,

 How is the weather there?

is an example of the latter.

Time/temporal

Time, or temporal, deixis concerns itself with the various times involved in and referred to in an utterance. This includes time like
"now", "then", "soon", and so forth, and also different. A good example is the word tomorrow, which denotes the consecutive next
day after every day. The "tomorrow" of a day last year was a different day than the "tomorrow" of a day next week. Time adverbs can
be relative to the time when an utterance is made (what Fillmore calls the "encoding time", or ET) or when the utterance is heard
(Fillmore’s "decoding time", or DT). While these are frequently the same time, they can differ, as in the case of prerecorded
broadcasts or correspondence. For example, if one were to write
  It is raining out now, but I hope when you read this it will be sunny.

The ET and DT would be different, with the former deictic term concerning ET and the latter the DT.

Tenses are generally separated into absolute (deictic) and relative tenses. So, for example, simple English past tense is
absolute, such as in

 He went.

While the pluperfect is relative to some other deictically specified time, as in

 He had gone.

Discourse

Discourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the that
contains the utterance — including the utterance itself. For example, in

 This is a great story.

“This” refers to an upcoming portion of the discourse, and in

  That was an amazing day.

“That” refers to a prior portion of the discourse.

Distinction must be made between discourse deixis and anaphora, which is when an expression makes reference to the same
referent as a prior term, as in

 Matthew is an incredible athlete; he came in first in the race.

 Lyons points out that it is possible for an expression to be both deictic and anaphoric at the same time. In his example
 I was born in London and I have lived here/there all my life.

“here” or “there” function anaphorically in their reference to London, and deictically in that the choice between “here” or “there”
indicates whether the speaker is or is not currently in London.

For our discussions of rhetorical use of deixis, we will focus on Person Deixis, Place Deixis and Social Deixis. The Person Deixis
system contains three parts, referring respectively to the first person “I” (singular) and “we” (plural); the second person “you”
(singular ) and “you” (plural); and the third person “he”, “she” and “it” (singular) and “they” (plural). It is interesting to note that
speech is generally ego-centric. By this we mean that the speaker usually refers to himself or herself by using the first person. Not
otherwise. When you are speaking you use the first person to refer to yourself; when somebody else is speaking, he or she also uses
the first person. This, however, does not mean that you can not use the plural form of the first person when you alone are speaking.
We may flout the regulation of person and number, thus giving rise to signs of rhetorical motivation. We will come to this soon. The
Place Deixis indicates spatial relations involved in a communicative event. The most commonly used are “here”, which usually refers
to a place near the speaker; “there”, which refers to a relatively distant place; and correspondingly two pronouns “this” and “that”. In
English, spatial relations can also be expressed by a few verbs such as “go”, “come”, “take”, and “bring”. See the following diagram
(HE Zhao-xiong, 1989, p. 53).

Here are some examples:

(6) I will “go” to the railway station.
(7) “Take” an umbrella with you when leave for the market.
(8) When you “come” to see me, please “bring” me some magazines.

Social

Social deixis, as the name indicates, signals the social relations between, or social status of, the participants of communication. Social
deixis functions as a social lubricant. The social hierarchy is a machine that needs constant lubrication. Otherwise it will break down
due to friction. Social deixis too can be used for rhetorical purposes. Social deixis concerns the social information that is encoded
within various expressions, such as relative social status and familiarity. concerns those aspects of language structure that encode the
social identities of participants, or the social relationship between them but these usages are only relevant to the topic of social deixis
in so far as they are grammaticalized:
  polite pronouns ( frz. “Vous”, dt. “Sie”, ital. “Lei”, span. “usted” ), address titles

Social relations concern in all those examples the relation between the speaker and the addressee, especially the countries

In East Asia are known for having several levels of politeness, based on the social difference between the persons concerned.

Shall we always abide by the usage of such deixical words in communication? The answer is “no”. Then why not? That is
what we are going to discuss.

The Analysis of Deixis in Politics Text “Obama Declares Iraq Combat Rule Complete”
 Deixis
No Sentence
Discou
Personal Spatial Temporal Social
rse
1 President Barrack Obama marks a President
promise kept in a speech Tuesday Barrack Obama
(Singular, 3rd Tuesday
Person)

2 Declaring the end of America’s

Baghdad
combat mission in Iraq and wagering
government After taking
the wobbly Baghdad government can In Iraq
(singular 3rd office
hold together against a still-dangerous
person)
insurgency.
3 After taking office, the president the president by august
vowed to withdraw all but 50000 US (singular 3rd 31st
troops by august 31st, a reduction of person) by the end
in office
about 90000 forces by the end of this US troops of this first
first twenty months in office. (plural 3rd twenty
person) months
4 American commanders reached that American
goal last week, the same seven-day commanders
period during which insurgent (plural 3rd
bombers and gunmen killed 50 Iraqis person) last week
Iraqis
(plural 3rd
person)
5 US leaders rarely address US leaders From the
from the president’s office. (plural 3rd president’s rarely
person) office.
6 On Tuesday, Obama will have chosen Obama On Tuesday
the venue twice since mid-june. (singular 3rd
since mid-
person) june
7 Earlier, he addressed the nation about He
in the Gulf
the BP oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico (singular 3rd Earlier
of Mexico
person)
8 The timing of the speech appears Speech
aimed at reminding the Americans of (singular 3rd
the importance of the departure from person)
Iraq as Obama’s popularity is flagging Americans
Questions:

1. How many deixis are there in the article?

In the political text that is analyzed, the text just contains three deixis, they are: personal, spatial, temporal and personal is the most
deixis in the text. This case is happened because a text or sentence and even oral without personal deixis seem having no sense to the
readers or the listeners because personal deixis is the most important part in written or oral text. A sentence or a text without spatial
and temporal deixis still gives a clear meaning to the readers or listeners or we can say that the sentence still have good sense. For
clearance, look at the examples below:
Written Form
1. John woke me up early in the morning when we were in my grand parent’s house
2. Wake up early in the morning
3. Wake up in grand parent’s house
The first sentence shows us a very clear meaning that “John” is the doer and “me” (Personal deixis) is the object or to whom the
activity is done (suffer) and “in the morning” (temporal deixis) just additional information that shows us when is the activity of
waking taken place not in the afternoon even not in the night, and so does the sentence “when we were in my grand parent’s house”
(temporal and spatial) shows us the information when and where it is exactly taken place. While in the second and the third sentences
even though we see there is an activity of waking up (process) and the information of when is the activity is done but the sentence
still does not make good sense so the it will confuse the reader who wakes up whom. It means that in order to make a sentence in
good sense or meaning, the existence of the personal deixis is the most important things.
2. If the article does not use whole deixis, explain why it is so?

The political article does not use the whole deixis because the political article is written for general or for all people means that every
people who reads the political text will understand the meaning of the text or simply, the text is written not for certain people. That is
why the writer tries to write the text in good diction without using the words that contain geographical boundaries and cultural
boundaries that gives ambiguity and unclear message of the text. And also a political text has its own characteristics, they are:
1. The target of the information exist in the text is general
2. The text must be written in complete form means can not miss a single element in order to avoid the ambiguity for the
readers.
3. The word used in the text can not be influenced by geographical boundaries and cultural boundaries.

So social deixis and discourse deixis is not needed in the political text because social deixis conatains geographical boundaries and
cultural boundaries that will gives limited meaning to the reader or we can say that the meaning of text will be understood just by
certain people and of course it is really contrasted with the characteristics, and discourse deixis will give unclear meaning to the
readers by the time it is exist in the text.

REFERENCE
Reference is the relationship between language and the world. A referring expression is any expression used in utterance to refer to
something or someone.

ex:

- ‘Mary kick me’. ( The speaker has a particular person in mind when he says ‘Mary’.

- There’s no Mary at this address.’ (A speaker would not have a particular person in mind in uttering the word.

The characteristic of reference:

 The object where the expression refers to.

 The reference of a proper name is the object it means or indicates.

 It includes imaginary objects, ex: Unicorn, Elves and Santa Clause,etc.

 The reference of an expression is often a thing or a person in the world.

 It includes objects which currently do not exist but could exist, ex: A king of France, Dinosaurus, a five cent ice.
“Elements such as today, tomorrow, here, this, that, now, then, I, you, he, she, etc. which serve to locate what is being referred to in
space or time relative to the time and place of utterance, are known as deictic elements and the phenomenon in general is known as
deixis.”(Cruse (1986), p. 196). For a theory of reference appealed to in this definition of deixis we will adopt the main common
points of modern theories tracing back to Frege and developed in Evans (1985), Devitt and Sterelny (1999), Recanati (1993), and
others. The following three points are consequences of these theories: 1. Reference is direct. That is, there is a difference between
using language merely descriptively and using language referentially. The latter includes use of proper names, indexicals like I, and
here, tense, definite descriptions like the big tree (when used referentially), and the demonstratives this, and that. Put colloquially,
directness of reference requires the speaker to be intending to refer to some particular object, place, time, etc. It turns out that a direct
connection between the speaker and the referent almost always involves some (at least partially) non-linguistic relation between the
speaker and the referent. In deictic circumstances, the non-linguistic relation often amounts to the speaker perceiving the referent.
Thus that tree is too tall will normally have the tree as referent just because (i) the speaker is perceiving the tree and (ii) that
perception is the origin of the use of the words that tree. In other words, the speaker is intending to refer to the tree he is perceiving.
In this case the perception is part of the non-linguistic relation between the speaker and the referent. 2. Reference is distinct from
sense (which includes meaning). This explains why the following two sentences can have the same referent while differing in
meaning:(5) a. That animal is too tall. b. That giraffe is too tall. This also explains why a speaker can refer to something without there
being any preferred or particular fact he knows, believes, or says (in the referring utterance) about the referent, (Kripke (1972)). This
is also relevant to our examples of deixis to properties that we will be discussing below. The distinctionrelevant to our examples of
deixis to properties that we will be discussing below. The distinction between reference and sense explains how a speaker can say
don’t go this fast without knowing how fast he is moving, and yet still successfully refer to the speed at which he is moving. 3.
Reference is distinct from understanding reference. A speaker can refer without the intended hearer understanding what proposition
was intended (Kaplan (1989b)). The hearer may not understand that tree istoo tall if he is, perhaps, looking at the wrong tree. He
understands the meaning without getting just what was said. Nevertheless, we need not assume the speaker has not actually referred
to the intended tree. This is an important fact about reference, hence deixis, that influenced our design of the NLVR system. It also
suggests that the treatment of matters of cooperative communication, salience, and gesture are not part of the theory of reference, but
belong to a theory of pragmatics which includes considerations of perception in a context as well as the more usual theories of
cooperative dialog. Information from the referent (or perceived object) to the person is required for the reference (or perception).
Saying that tree, the speaker refers only if he has information from the tree. To refer deictically, the source of information is the tree
via perception (e.g., carried by light waves, converted to neural
codings, tracked through time, and so on). One can do a lot of research in both the linguistics and the computational linguistics of
demonstratives and deixis without taking a stand on this causal explanation of the linguistic phenomena. And some of what we say
below does not depend on this theory. But in our case, we are very much interested in considering this information flow theory in
order to simulate language understanding when the speaker talks about what he “sees” in the VR world. The NLVR system (section
6) simulates both the language processing and the perceptual events that are often essential for the understanding of deixis to be
successful. We simulate that latter by relying on the causal account.
There are three kinds of reference, they are”
1. Definite reference
2. Indefinite reference
3. Generic reference.
The Analysis of Deixis in Politics Text “Obama Declares Iraq Combat Rule Complete”
 Reference
No Sentence
Definite Indefinite Generic
1 President Barrack Obama marks a President
promise kept in a speech Tuesday Barrack Obama
promise

2 Declaring the end of America’s

combat mission in Iraq and wagering Baghdad
In Iraq
the wobbly Baghdad government can government
hold together against a still-dangerous
insurgency.
3 After taking office, the president
vowed to withdraw all but 50000 US
US troops president
troops by august 31st, a reduction of
in office
about 90000 forces by the end of this
first twenty months in office.
4 American commanders reached last American
week, the same seven-day period commanders,
during which insurgent bombers and Iraqis,
gunmen killed 50 Iraqis that goal

5 US leaders rarely address US leaders

from the president’s office. president’s
office.
6 On Tuesday, Obama will have chosen
the venue Obama
the venue twice since mid-june.
7 Earlier, he addressed the nation about He
BP oil
the BP oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico nation
8 The timing of the speech appears
aimed at reminding the Americans of
Americans Obama
the importance of the departure from
Speech
Iraq as Obama’s popularity is flagging
largely because of the troubled US
economy.
9 With November congressional
elections just two months away,
Obama
Obama is looking for foreign policy the house of
elections
boost before voting that could see his representative,
fellow democrats lose their majority in the senate.
the house of representative and,
perhaps also in the senate.
10 In that light, the Iraq speech precedes
Question:

3. Find out also what kinds of referring expressions in the article, what extensions dominantly
use in the article?

In the political text that is analyzed, the text contains three reference, they are: definite, indefinite and generic reference. Indefinite
reference is the most reference that exists in the text. This case is happened because the text is analyzed sentence by sentence so it
makes difficult to refer participants of the sentence in the text. In the analysis because there are so many indefinite references seem
that each sentences is not bounded or they stand alone which effect the unity of the meaning of the whole text or caused the delivered
meaning or message in the text can not be understood well by the reader. But when the whole text is analyzed all at once, definite
reference will be the most reference that exists in the text because each participant in each sentence will refer to situational reference.

As the conclusion here that the most we find the definite reference in a text, the better text we have because the definite
reference will help us to find the intended meaning which is conveyed in the text.

4. Suppose you change the referring expressions used in the article, will it affect the meaning of the sentence? Write the more
common words.
When there is a change in the referring expressions in an article, there must be changes in meaning. It means that the referring
expression can not be changed in order to keep the meaning in consistence that make the text more qualified and better. For example:
President = leader = director = manager (Some one who is in the first position that may set some role to be obeyed by his member).
Even though they have the same meaning but they do not represent the same meaning in a sentence. Look at the sentence below:
President Barrack Obama marks a promise kept in a speech Tuesday.
We can not change the word president in the sentence by using the word “leader, director, or
manager”

EXTENSION
Extension is the set of individual to which that predicate can truthfully be applied. It is the set of things which can potentially be
referred to by using an expression whose main element is that predicate. In the case of most frequent common nouns, at least an
extension is a set of physical object.

Eg:

The extension of window the set of all windows in the world.

The extension of cat the set of all cat in the world.

The extension of green the set of all green things in the world.
 The Characteristics of Extension and Reference

Extension
It is used for wider occasion/object/thing
The number of thing is not exact
It doesn’t need exact indicators
It does not refer to the situational
Reference
It is used for particular occasion/object/thing
The number of thing is exact
It needs more exact indicators(this,that,mine,your)
It must refer to the situational

The Analysis of Extension in Politics Text “Obama Declares Iraq Combat Rule Complete”
 Extention
No Sentence
Prototype Stereotype
1 President Barrack Obama marks a President Barrack
promise kept in a speech Tuesday Obama
2 Declaring the end of America’s
combat mission in Iraq and wagering
the wobbly Baghdad government can America’s combat
hold together against a still-dangerous
insurgency.
3 After taking office, the president
vowed to withdraw all but 50000 US
troops by august 31st, a reduction of US troops
about 90000 forces by the end of this
first twenty months in office.
4 American commanders reached last
week, the same seven-day period American commanders,
during which insurgent bombers and Iraqis
gunmen killed 50 Iraqis
5 US leaders rarely address
US leaders
from the president’s office.
6 On Tuesday, Obama will have chosen
Obama
the venue twice since mid-june.
7 Earlier, he addressed the nation about
the BP oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico
8 The timing of the speech appears
aimed at reminding the Americans of
the importance of the departure from
Americans, Obama
Iraq as Obama’s popularity is flagging
largely because of the troubled US
economy.
9 With November congressional
elections just two months away,
Obama is looking for foreign policy
boost before voting that could see his Obama, house
fellow democrats lose their majority in
the house of representative and,
perhaps also in the senate.
10 In that light, the Iraq speech precedes
by two days assumption of Israeli- Iraq
Palestinian peace talks.
11 Obama had pledged to make peace in
the middle east a top agenda item in Obama
In the analysis of extension in the text, the prototype is more rather then stereotype it is because the
predicate in the text is an object which is held to be very typical of the kind of object which can be
referred to by an expression containing the predicate. While stereotype, the predicate is a list of the
typical characteristics of things to which the predicate may be applied. And in the political text, it is not
need to give additional information on the predicate of the sentence by putting its typical characteristics
even some times it is needed as the example above.

CONCLUSION
Deixis is a universal linguistic phenomenon. Deixis is divided to be several types, they are: person, temporal, spatial, discourse and
social deixis. In the political text that had been analyzed above, there just found there kinds of deixis, they are personal, temporal and
spatial, and personal deixis is the most deixis in the text because it is the most important deixis in a text in order to make the sense of
the sentence become better. So social deixis and discourse deixis is not needed in the political text because social deixis conatains
geographical boundaries and cultural boundaries that will gives limited meaning to the reader or we can say that the meaning of text
will be understood just by certain people and of course it is really contrasted with the characteristics, and discourse deixis will give
unclear meaning to the readers by the time it is exist in the text. In the political text that is analyzed, the text contains three reference,
they are: definite, indefinite and generic reference. Indefinite reference is the most reference that exists in the text. Referring
expression can not be changed in order to keep the meaning in consistence that make the text more qualified and better. The
extension that was found in the text are prototype and stereotype and prototype is the most extension.

REFERENCES

Hurford R. James and Heasley Brendan. Semantics: A Course Book. London, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cruse Alan D. 2000. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press.
The Jakarta Post. 2010. Obama Declares Iraq Combat Rule Complete. Published on Thursday, 9th February
2010.
Schlenker. P. 2000. Reference Beyond Individual. California: University of Southern California.
Pardillos C.Á. Miguel. 1995. Deixis as a Reference to an Alleged Shared Situation in Persuasive Discourse. Universidad de Alicante.
Chang-qi Chen. 8080. On Rhetorical Use of Deixis. China. English Department, Luoding Polytechnic, Luoding Guangdong.
Klipple Elizabeth And Gurney John. 2003. Deixis to Properties in the NLVR System. Adelphi Laboratory Center.